Anonimo
Thrill of the Chase
My son was maybe 5. He had just learned to ride a bike. Trying out his new legs, he pedaled faster and faster until I was a dot on his horizon. Going downhill, I couldn't scream loud enough for him to hear. My feet felt like lead. I could only watch as I prayed in my heart for his safety. I thought of the oncoming traffic and started running again. I heard him laughing and shrieking, the thrill of the chase. Still, anything could happen to him. My imagination drifted. I saw him kidnapped, then a car slamming into him, and last, I pictured a bike wreck with my son lying on the ground.
I stopped and caught my breath, panting. "He's so innocent," I thought, "and has no idea of the danger he's in."
My whole world gone in an instant.
Yet, he might have been thinking: "Yes! Dad's gone; I'm finally free!" One thing is for sure: he had the wild eyes of a puppy who found an open gate.
My son's thrills aren't as dangerous today, but they are still daring. On Sunday, he showed me a post he made on a public forum for an online college class. He called his teacher out, in an indirect and hypothetical comment, for not grading his long-past philosophy discussions. He argued that without current feedback, he wouldn't know how to improve his future assignments. He's not wrong. But calling someone of academic authority out on that professor's own thread? That's brave.
I'm not sure if consequences for his post have arrived. Yesterday, he received a 73 on his long-delayed first graded discussion. He showed me his screenshot. I looked it over and disagreed with the professor's filled-out rubric, especially his claim of my son's persistent grammatical errors in his entries; maybe a couple of stray commas at most.
Early this morning, my wife called me. She said the professor posted his attendance on his site and marked our son absent by mistake two weeks ago. I felt a new version of his joyride from five years old unfold. Only, he's moved past the physical dangers and is now looking at the monetary costs, the loss of his financial aid.
How could my son approach this error with his professor if he might have already gotten on his bad side? Our son had to go to work, so the conclusion would have to wait.
Before I could think about it anymore, my phone rang again; I answered.
"He found his dated notes from class," my wife explained.
Email. Copy attached. Send.
I could picture that same wild look in our son's eyes.
The wild look in his eyes has simply changed with age. 😂 From racing down a hill on a bicycle to fearlessly challenging a professor, he clearly has never been afraid to test the limits. Great storytelling!
This instantly made me feel the panic of being a parent watching a little child ride a bicycle faster and faster without realizing how quickly they’re getting away. The way the story describes the child becoming just a dot on the horizon while the parent is desperately trying to catch up creates such a vivid picture. I could almost feel that helplessness of wanting to run faster but realizing your body simply isn’t moving quickly enough. What makes it even more emotional is that the child probably sees the whole thing as an exciting adventure, while the parent is imagining every possible danger in those few seconds. That difference in perspective is so real. Children often don’t understand how frightening certain situations can be for the people who love them because they’re simply enjoying their newfound freedom and excitement. I also really liked the detail about the narrator’s feet feeling like lead and praying in their heart for the child’s safety. It shows how quickly an ordinary moment can turn into pure fear when someone you love is involved. The title “Thrill of the Chase” works so well because it captures both the child’s excitement and the parent’s desperate attempt to keep up. It feels like one of those memories that stays with you forever, not because everything went wrong, but because for a few terrifying moments, you realized just how much that little person means to you. ❤️
As a millennial, I would have never done anything to be in bad books of a professor, let alone calling them out on a social platform. But today's kids are brave, they are not afraid to challenge the authorities. What your son has done is exemplary. More power to him